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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

FRANKLIN K. LANE. SECRETARY 

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 

STEPHEN T. MATHER. DIRECTOR 



THE PUBLIC AND 
THE NATIONAL PARKS 



ADDRESS :: By HUSTON THOMPSON, Jr. 

Assistant Attorney General 

DELIVERED AT THE NATIONAL PARKS CONFERENCE 
AT WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 3, 1917 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1917 



JAM 



,t D 



THE PUBLIC AND THE NATIONAL PARKS. 

By Huston Thompson, Jr.. Assistant Attorney General. 

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I took a trip with Secretary 
Mather last summer to Yellowstone Park, in company with several 
others, and had such a marvelous time that I have been thinking 
about another trip ever since. A few days ago, when he called me 
up over the telephone and asked if I would not make a few remarks 
at this gathering, I demurred, not feeling that I was up to the propo- 
sitions; and then he said on the 'phone in a most significant way, 
" Well, you know we are going to take another trip next summer." 
And I said, " Oh, very well ; I will make the remarks." So you 
know the price he is paying and the fee I am getting, and the Lord 
only knows how r hard you are going to suffer. 

I think this is a most fascinating question which Ave have to dis- 
cuss. That part of the symposium assigned to me, " The public and 
our national parks," is unusually appealing. The parks suggest a 
panorama of peaks, canyons, fleckless skies, illimitable spaces, and 
lofty altitudes so inspirational that the call to say something becomes 
irresistible. Some of our good friends in their fullness of local 
pride may ask. But why go to the national parks for your inspira- 
tion? That question might be put with some weight to a Burroughs 
or a Whitman, but, sad to relate, few of us have their vision. In fact, 
most of us have but three active senses, and while in modern ver- 
nacular we are a six-cvlindered machine, we are running on three. 
The old Persian poet described not only the people of his time but 
our own when he said : " We are no other than a moving row of 
magic shadow shapes that come and go." We travel in a moving 
show whose destination is the great cities of our land. They draw 
us into their maws, just as the mud geyser of the Yellowstone draws 
any particle near its lips down into its dragon's mouth with a roar, 
vomits it up and sucks it back again. So we are caught in the 
throats of the great cities as they inhale and exhale our man-made 
civilization. Their noises dull our ears to the still small voice of 
nature, while man's handiwork blinds our eyes till it is only the 
shock of great altitudes or the vistas of nature in their most colossal 
and primeval state that can attune our ears and brush the scales 
from our eyes. 

Some may say. Why not go to the shores of the sea for your in- 
spiration? Our answer is that the seas do not inspire. Since the 

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4 THE PUBLIC AND THE NATIONAL PARKS. 

birth of man and down to the present hour the poets have sung about 
the sea in the minor key until its unanswered question has become a 
tragedy or a travesty, according as one may feel. The ancients 
thought the sea contained a monster called Leviathan, who, after a 
great contest with the Supreme Being, was plunged beneath the 
waves and kept there only through the power of God. The Hebrew 
poet describes the sea as " sprung from the womb of chaos." From 
his day to that of our own Longfellow the sea has been synonymous 
with sadness. Longfellow, who knew its moods by personal contact 
and study, in this " Evangeline," speaks of it as the " mournful and 
mystic Atlantic." and as giving forth disconsolate replies. There 
must be a psychological reason for such an effect on men's spirits. 
This probably lies in the fact that when man looks out to sea he 
continues to look out and out and finally down, while inspirations 
from time immemorial have come from looking upward. It is this 
action of looking upward that seems to fill the human soul with joy 
so that we shout or sing, and it is for this reason that the mountains 
or great altitudes inspire rather than depress. The greatest declara- 
tion of the human or divine soul was delivered from the top of a 
mountain. Why did not Jesus utter his Sermon on the Mount down 
by the Sea of Galilee ? The answer is that even He saw more clearly 
on the mountain top. Goethe led Faust through the valleys of life, 
where he wandered amidst the din and confusion of humanity, and it 
was not until he stood on the hillside that he heard the voices in 
song of those for whom it had been made possible to live in pleasant 
toil. 

Zebulon Pike in his diary says that when he and his small band 
of followers fighting the Indians and struggling along the banks of 
the Arkansas on the 15th day of November, 1806, first saw Pikes 
Peak and Cheyenne Mountains they shouted for joy. It is these very 
mountains that the people are now asking to be included in a national 
park. When Maj. Long and his party of scientists traversed the 
South Platte and first beheld Longs Peak and what is now Rocky 
Mountain National Park, despite their weariness they shouted for 
joy. Isaiah described the mountains and hills as singing. Job said 
they bring forth food. David spoke of the mountains as the " pillars 
of Heaven " and said : " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from 
whence cometh my help." Finally, the " sweet singer of Israel " de- 
clared that the mountains bring peace to the people. 

There is a deep significance in this. Has it ever occurred to you 
how infrequently the races of the mountains have been the aggressors 
in war and have rarely sought the territory of others; yet how when 
attacked they fought with invincible heroism ? We have but to sug- 
gest that wonderful little Republic of Switzerland as an evidence 



THE PUBLIC AND THE NATIONAL PARKS. 5 

of this fact. If the mountains have a peaceful effect on the people 
then at this time in particular it is worth while studying them and 
finding the reason. I think the answer is, to some extent, embraced 
in an article in a late number of the Atlantic Monthly entitled, " The 
still small voice," by John Burroughs. He says in substance that 
the noise of the falling tree is the thing that attracts our attention, 
but that the real significant thing is the silent force in nature that has 
been slowly bringing about the condition that caused the tree to fall ; 
that in our mountains it is not the noises of the moment, such as the 
thunder of the storm or the roar of the tornado, but the silent forces 
eroding the peaks or the imperceptible action of the great glaciers 
that are the really great forces. The writer fears that in our present 
great world catastrophe and in our political life we may hear and 
see only the external patent things, the momentary clamor of the 
passing event or the voice of the political demagogue; whereas we 
must catch the sound of the still small voice if we would hold our 
spiritual and political equilibrium. 

Just as Burroughs is impelled to borrow his similes on this subject 
from the mountains, so are those that live in them, in a more un- 
conscious degree, impressed with the clearer judgment of man's re- 
lations in life. And if even from the days of the ancient Israelite 
to " live and let live " in peace be the story they tell to those dwelling 
or sojourning among them and we can absorb this lesson, then will 
Ave store up our national strength, and it will be used only against 
the invader and will not be dissipated in aggression. Looking at our 
parks and their mountains in this light we shall see that they mean 
something more to our nation than mere playgrounds. We shall 
have a desire to visit them and become saturated with their atmos- 
phere. Then shall they be to us what they ought to be — stabilizers 
of our national life — and with our national life leavened by this 
desire for peace rather than for aggression not only in respect to ter- 
ritory, but in our commercial life, we shall as a nation have no fear 
of what our position may be in the international world. 

But what of the effect of the mountains and parks on the individ- 
ual? They will open the eyes of youth to the truth. Turgeniev in 
one of his books describes a youth looking out on a great vista, his 
soul moved with an intense longing. The writer adds that the youth 
will find his answer when he looks at this scene through the eyes of 
his mate. This is the wholesome lesson that our mountains will teach 
our youth. What a restorative they will be to the man of 50 who has 
been pyramiding success upon success and is suddenly bowled over 
by his first great failure. This is, undoubtedly, the most momentous 
period in man's life. We are told that 95 per cent of our kind, in- 
stead of rising above the failure of this time lose their grip and 
so down. The man in this frame of mind will be lifted above his 



6 THE PUBLIC AND THE NATIONAL PARKS. 

futile aims for fame or gain and there will come a new vision of the 
verities of life that will bring peace to his soul. Finally, what a 
glorious call to old age. To those who fear the crossing of the Great 
Divide there is here an object lesson in the beauties of the other side, 
so enchanting as to drive away all its fears. 

It is along this line of thought that I have tried to fashion the 
following lines to our national parks : 

I sigh for your peaks, your canyons and trees. 
Where the rain, the sun. the mist, and the breeze 
Slowly fashion (Jed's dreams with infinite grace, 
Forever unconscious of man's fevered pace. 

Your vistas are not like those by the sea. 

Where questions unanswered roll hack from the lee; 

No sphinx's riddle you leave in the soul. 

But joyously point each heart to its goal. 

You unveil to youth in his questioning state 
The answer which lies in the soul of his mate ; 
While trembling fifty, once swollen with fame, 
Beholding your verities recovers his aim. 

You call old age from life's vale to the peak. 
Where, standing above the mists of the weak 
And immersed in the beauty of yonder side, 
He welcomes the crossing of life's great divide. 

O lift up your heads, ye everlasting hills. 
And sing of the hope that restores broken wills; 
Let our people pause and in receptive moods 
Catch this spirit of God that over you broods. 

o 



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